Dave Anderson was born in Flint, Mich., the son of a Detroit-area automotive engineer, and now lives in Colorado Springs, Colo. He attended Harvard College where he earned a bachelor's and a master's in business administration.

Growing up, Anderson saw how dependent his parents and neighbors were on a single industry and vowed not to be so closely tied to any single line of business. That may be why his resume is so varied.

After earning his master's in business administration, he didn't have interest in a financial services career on Wall Street. Instead he took on a series of varied jobs, from management at the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company to a midlevel manager position with the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C.

He then moved into management at electronics companies and is currently an executive at Cogent Strategies, a Colorado-based business consulting firm.

Dave and his wife, Nancy, have two sons.

It was a famous bureaucrat who inspired independent candidate Dave Anderson to get involved in politics. A student at Harvard College in the 1970s, Anderson was mentored by the late John Thomas Dunlap, a longtime presidential adviser on labor matters and a Secretary of Labor under President Gerald Ford.

"He served 11 presidents, and to this day I don't know his political affiliation, because it never mattered. He was a master of negotiation and mediation," Anderson recalled of his thesis adviser.

Dunlop's nonpartisan approach to governing is what Anderson hopes to recreate in Congress. He's taking on Colorado's longest-serving Republican, Rep. Doug Lamborn, in a district so conservative that Democrats didn't even field a candidate this year.

Anderson says he was inspired to make his first run for political office against Lamborn because he is turned off by Lamborn's purist approach to governing, with a record so conservative he wins praise from right-leaning activists but has never seen a bill he sponsored become law, even though the GOP controls the House.

In a letter to voters, Anderson said he "doesn't believe the career politicians in Washington offer any real solutions or take the time to understand the issues affecting everyday Americans."

So far Anderson has courted Democratic voters but insists he is not a Democrat, probably a wise tactic in a district that hasn't elected a Democrat since its creation in 1972.

Colorado's 5th Congressional District changed less than any other district in Colorado after decennial redistricting. The 5th District became marginally less Republican but remains the most Republican district in Colorado by party registration _ 43 percent Republican, 34 percent independent and 23 percent Democratic.